Maxim Bange

The inventive and modern August smart lock is inching closer to availability today. The company has begun taking pre-orders for its beautiful Yves Behar-designed product that, like the Nest thermostat, aims to reinvigorate a market that's long lacked any real innovation. August set up a reservation list shortly after unveiling its "secure, simple, and social way to manage your home’s lock," but now it's moving one step further by collecting payment information with all pre-orders. To take some sting out of an extremely high $199 asking price, August is offering some nice incentives for buyers that get in early; you'll get to choose from a selection of limited-edition colors and receive priority shipping when the smart lock ships in...

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A two-in-one ultrabook and tablet that avoids BYOD

Its first two-in-one Haswell ultrabook and tablet for businesses

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Animated sitcom South Park's latest video game-related spoof will venture into the addictive world of Minecraft.

A teaser clip tweeted by Comedy Central sees the adults of South Park looking for someone to teach them how to play the crafting-based sandbox game. Check out the video above to see their negotiating skills in action. The episode airs this Wednesday.

Minecraft isn't the show's first gaming spoof. Other notable episodes include Cartman's long wait for a Wii and a parody of massive multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. The upcoming role-playing game based on the show, South Park: The Stick of Truth, launches Dec. 10 for Windows PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

As privacy escalates into one of the Internet’s hottest topics, yesterday TorrentFreak published an article which asked a simple question – can you trust your VPN provider?

Our general conclusion was that in the absence of third-party auditing, at the moment it is probably a case of a user assessing a VPN provider’s attitudes, relying on feedback from existing customers, and then making an educated decision on perceived risks versus potential benefits.

It appears that the article’s timing was coincidentally spot on. On Saturday VPN provider Proxy.sh, a company that has built up a decent reputation with good pricing, quality of service and a no-logging policy, made a surprise announcement. It concerned a server the company operates out of Illinois in the United States which had been temporarily shut down and reopened.

“We are unfortunate [sic] to announce that there have been abuse complaints about hacking activities on our U.S. Illinois 1 node. We have been saddened to learn that these actions were harmful to individuals (human beings). As a result, we will open this node again and monitor it with Wireshark for a period of 7 days,” Proxy.sh announced.

The paragraph requires very little explanation except to underline the fact that a VPN provider has just confessed to spying on customer traffic. Shock of that aside, there was no mention of any legal process, court order, police action or other similar outside influence compelling Proxy.sh to do so.

Bizarrely the VPN provider then went on to give the alleged hacker a public warning.

“If you are the hacker, please stop your activities and leave our network. You are not welcome here. Our heaven is reserved to those who are not harmful to other human beings. If you do not leave, we will find you and report your activities to NGO and press officers,” Proxy.sh continued.

Then, in an attempt to let other customers know that they shouldn’t worry, Proxy.sh gave the following assurances.

“For all others, the heaven is still safe for you, dear ones. We will completely remove Wireshark after 7 days and restart the node so that everything is erased (RAM-switch). All other nodes are left unaffected by these actions,” they conclude.

Providing Proxy.sh’s announcements were roughly around the times that the sniffing software was deployed, the company was capturing packets on its Illinois server between 19:46 on Saturday evening through to Sunday morning at 06:35. At this time the VPN provider posted an update to say that Wireshark had been removed.

A source told TorrentFreak that the monitoring was triggered after Proxy.sh received a complaint from someone who claimed they were being harassed by a Proxy.sh user. The VPN provider then allegedly took it upon themselves to try and sort out the problem. It’s not clear what happened next but apparently the person responsible for the abuse was either found or stepped forward, prompting an apology and an end to the matter.

While some may argue that Proxy.sh was only trying to act responsibly by ending the abuse and acted properly by giving advance notice to its customers that a server would be monitored, the episode is likely to be damaging to the company.

First of all, the announcement was made on the company’s website, hidden away from easy viewing. Users of the VPN were very unlikely to view the message as the service is accessed through software on their computers. Second, the correct avenue for dealing with these issues is through law enforcement or the courts and the realization that a provider spied on its users (and admitted it) simply because it felt like doing so is quite remarkable.

TorrentFreak approached Proxy.sh for an official statement but we have yet to receive a response.

Update: Statement from Proxy.sh

“We are very opened about our activities and we do not support or promote activities that may be harmful to human beings. We have been contacted by a family about someone using our network and harassing their daughters. As per stated in our ethics policy, we condemn activities that are harmful to human beings.

We have decided to install a monitor on our Illinois 1 node so as to locate the hacker. Few hours after we announced this move to our public, the hacker came to us to apologise. We then completely removed the Wireshark installation.

This situation shows that we are actually really not logging anything and that we will always tell our members when we have to log one of our nodes or our entire network, either for maintenance and small internal affairs such as this.

The situation also shows that the only solution we have to help law enforcement agencies find problematic use across our network, is to clearly install a logging capacity on it. As a result, we are able to either comply or shut down the servers we have in a particular location (it happened to us in Czech Republic few months ago).

We will only intervene into our traffic when we believe there have been activities infringing our ethical terms – that is when activities harmful to human beings (not corporations or entities) are taking place on our network. In such case, we do not privilege law enforcement agencies but rather communication, transparency and assistance from NGOs.”

Source: Proxy.sh VPN Provider Sniffed Server Traffic to Catch Hacker

Government needs IT whizzes to join cyber army

No electric vehicle is more iconic than Tesla Motors' Model S, and none of its features are more notorious than the colossal 17-inch touchscreen that replaces many of the traditional buttons and knobs found on your regular car dashboard. The Verge's Chris Ziegler wasn't too impressed with the interface when he took the Model S for a spin, finding it overbearing and unreliable. But what if you could bring your own touchscreen to an electric vehicle, providing more useful information while keeping the standard controls intact?

That's the idea being pushed by Terra Motors, a Japanese startup that says it's created the first "sophisticated" electric scooter to enter mass production. The A4000i looks more or less like any other moped, but...

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After five grueling days of combat, it had all come down to this. With the score tied at two games apiece, Sweden’s team Alliance and the Ukraine’s team Na’Vi would battle one final time. It's the championship match of Valve Software’s annual tournament for the game DOTA 2. At stake was first place and the lion’s share of a $2.8 million prize pool, the largest in the history of competitive video gaming.

The players massaged aching fingers and strategized with their teammates. Each team selected a group of five mythical heroes they used to try and destroy the enemy’s home base. For the first 40 minutes it was a close match, but then things took a dramatic turn.

Both teams abandoned their defensive positions and threw...

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80-year-old paper that broke Watergate scandal snapped up with kingpin's pocket change

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos last night completed his bargain-basement takeover of the Washington Post, which he bought for $250m in cash.…

Finnish security firm F-Secure Labs recently released a Threat Report [pdf] for the first half of 2013; it shows "a continued rise in exploit-based attacks, particularly against Java, and an increasing sophistication in mobile threats." Regarding exploits, the most common attack vector, "users in the U.S.

Twee belangrijke fabrikanten van gamelaptops zijn Dell met Alienware en Asus. We slingerden respectievelijk de Alienware 17 en de G750J van deze bedrijven aan voor een tweestrijd.

Rockstar heeft de ondersteuning voor microtransacties in GTA Online tijdelijk uitschakeld, zolang een groot deel van de spelers de onlinemodus van het spel nog niet weet te bereiken. Een dag na de lancering kampt de onlinemodus van GTA V nog met forse problemen.

Na de Samsung Galaxy S4 is nu ook de Samsung Galaxy Note 3 'betrapt' op het valsspelen in benchmarks. De Samsung Galaxy Note 3 blijkt populaire benchmark apps te herkennen en te manipuleren.

The hacker/activist group Anonymous and the Church of Scientology have famously had it out with each other for the past several years, and it looks like the pot is beginning to boil again. A member of Anonymous sent us an email describing Scientology's alleged abuse of Craigslist as a means to recruit new members.

Our tipster writes that "Anonymous has attempted to use Craigslist's flagging system to take down their ads, as they are constantly violating terms of use with ridiculous amounts of postings in a number of cities across the United States and Canada. In New York City, San Francisco, and Houston, over 100 ads are posted in a single day... sometimes over 200...Repeated e-mails to Craigslist about the constant violations of their terms of use had gone unanswered, so we started thinking out of the box and posting 'counter ads'. We posted hundreds of ads across the U.S., using the same or similar titles to the Scientology ads, warning of the true nature of the ads in as many humorous or noticeable ways as we could."

Here's an example of these so-called counter ads.

And another:

You get the idea.

There's another wrinkle to the story, however. Our tipster continued:

'When we began posting more counter ads, our ads were flagged down within a minute or two of being posted. Even before being live in the main list. There are only two ways this could have happened: a) by flagging software, which is also illegal according to Craigslist and can supposedly result in permanent banning or b) by Craigslist themselves ignoring Co$'s posts and taking down ours, acting against their own policies and supporting the Church's position despite blatant misuse of the site.

'We are outraged that this continues to happen under the supervision of Craigslist, and they have seemingly chosen to do nothing.'

We emailed Craigslist for their side of the story. We'll update this post when we hear back.

If you want all the context on this long-raging feud, you can read up on Anonymous's Project Chanology here.

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Many brands are moving away from metrics that purport to measure ROI on social media. 

They've realized that social media isn't a transactional engine or sales machine, so they're dropping half-baked indicators that gauge secondary effects, such as financial return.

Instead, the new metrics evaluate social media strategies in terms of audience-building, brand awareness, and customer relations. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we look at the no-frills but powerful metrics that social media managers and analytics companies are focusing on, we explain how the end of the vogue for ROI has not meant a pullback on social media budgets (in fact, social media budgets are ballooning). And we dig into some of the misconceptions and misuses surrounding the more common reach and engagement metrics popularized by Facebook Insights, the built-in analytics dashboard for Facebook pages.  

Access The Full Report, Charts, And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here's how social media strategies are evolving: 

• The decline of ROI metrics: Between 2010 and 2013, the percentage of marketers using a revenue-per-customer metric on social media went from 17% to 9%, according to the February 2013 CMO survey. The percentage tracking conversion rates also dropped, from 25% to 21%.
• Even as the vogue for ROI indicators fades, social media budgets are ballooning. On average, top marketers expect to devote 9% of their budgets to social media spend in 2014, and 16% by 2018, according to the same survey.
• Exceptions: Of course there are exceptions to the move away from ROI. Some social commerce applications and direct response campaigns will achieve measurable results on Facebook, or other social networks. And the end of the ROI-fever definitely doesn't mean that all metrics can be thrown out the window. 
• The metrics to watch are audience reach, engagement, and sentiment. On Facebook, it's always important to remember that due to algorithmic filtering, brand or business posts will only be seen by an average 16% of their fans.
• Facebook shares are particularly valuable, because normal users' posts are seen in a relatively high percentage of friends' news feeds (compared to posts by brand pages); between 29 and 35% according to one study.
• Improving the most common metrics: Insights, Facebook's built-in analytics tool, offers great basic data for measuring reach and engagement. We show you how to transform those numbers into richer and more valuable metrics.
• Post reach is the most fundamental indicator of reach on Facebook, but it's important to track it relative to number of page fans and enrich it with complementary indicators. We show you how, and include screenshots. 

In full, the report: 

• Includes interviews with Facebook and a top social media analytics platform
• Includes screen shots from the new beta version of Facebook Insights, which will be many brands' window into their analytics
• Looks at why so few brands and businesses use metrics to perform a competitive analysis of how they stack up against other brands on social media platforms
• Explains why most basic metrics like number of fans or likes are known as "vanity metrics," because they don't offer much beyond making social media managers feel good about themselves
• Explains how to build an arsenal of straightforward but powerful metrics that examine activity, reach, engagement, and competitive dynamics for your social media strategy

For full access to the report on The Decline Of Social Media ROI sign up for a free trial subscription today.

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The post Skype updated for Windows Phone 8. Now you can hide unwanted chats appeared first on AIVAnet.

The post Don’t like how iOS 7 only shows first names in the Messages and Mail apps? Here’s how to fix it! appeared first on AIVAnet.

NOORDWIJK - Voor studenten die met het beste idee voor een studie- of stageproject komen om de luchtvaartindustrie een impuls te geven ligt een stimuleringsbonus klaar van maar liefst 10.000 euro. De prijs is beschikbaar gesteld door het Nederlandse Lucht- en Ruimtevaart Fonds (NLF) en wordt op 9 november uitgereikt.

Etsy is making significant policy changes today that will offer sellers more flexibility and convenience than ever before. But the new guidelines, which allow the sale of items produced entirely by "manufacturing partners," may also change what Etsy's users love about the site: its homemade, indie feel. But according to CEO  Chad Dickerson, it's a necessary change. "When Etsy started, we relied on one word to carry all our values out into the world: handmade," he wrote in a blog post detailing the new policies. "Almost immediately, that was a problem."

The new rules allow products to be labeled "handmade" so long as the original idea for that item — or its "authorship" as Dickerson says — comes from its respective seller. Further,...

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EverQuest 2, the free-to-play MMORPG from Sony Online Entertainment, is undergoing something of a bold experiment starting today; players who are so inclined can now skip the first 85 levels of progression, giving them instant access to endgame content.

For 3500 Station Cash — approximately $35 in SOE's proprietary digital currency — players can unlock a level 85 character of any class to play; they can also upgrade an existing character, boosting their level and equipping them with suitable equipment for their new rank. Today marks the beginning of a special "Hero's Call" promotion, which runs through Oct. 15, and allows one free, permanent Heroic character to be created per household for new players; pre-existing players can...

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Toyota's future lies in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, rather than all-electric cars like Tesla's Model S. Company chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada spoke frankly on the near-term future of cars in a speech on Monday, noting that electric vehicles require breakthroughs in battery technology to become a viable replacement for traditional cars. The Wall Street Journal quotes Uchiyamada saying "the reason why Toyota doesn't introduce any major [all-electric product] is because we do not believe there is a market to accept it."

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If you felt left out by the European debut of Google Play Music All Access in August, hopefully Mountain View’s latest announcement brings you into the musical fold. According to Google’s support page — as spotted by Android Police — the search giant’s music locker and streaming service is now available in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland. And given how fast European internet is, it shouldn’t take you nearly as long to upload a massive music collection as it did for us stateside, either.

Filed under: Google

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Via: Android Police

Source: Google Support

The post Google Play Music All Access makes its way to seven more European countries appeared first on AIVAnet.

While Google Glass might be the darling of the augmented reality wearable market, other companies like Vuzix and Epson have had skin in the game for much longer than the folks in Mountain View. One such firm to have caught the AR bug early is Optinvent, which debuted an early version of its ClearVu head-mounted display way back in 2009. Fast forward to 2013, and Optinvent is ready to move on to the final production stage of what it’s now calling the Ora, which it hopes will give Google Glass a run for its money, not just with superior optics but a softer blow to the wallet as well. We had a chance to sit down with CEO Kayvan Mirza at the Glazed conference in San Francisco, where we learned more about the Ora and had a chance to try it on ourselves.

One of the first things Mirza told us was that the Ora offers “true AR,” which overlays the entire display in front of your eyes much like a heads-up display unit. This is unlike Glass, which he says offers more of a “companion display” where you have to look up to view it. Don’t be concerned about the Ora completely blocking your sight however, as it has a very unique feature we’ve yet to see in wearable optics. It’s called Flip-Vu, and it lets you pivot the display downward into what’s called dashboard or glance mode so that it’s now more of a companion display rather than one that dominates your entire field of vision (You can see a demo video of this after the break). Mirza says glancing downward is a much more natural position than looking up, as we tend to look down at our phones and other devices anyway.%Gallery-slideshow99628%

Filed under: Wearables

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Source: Optinvent

The post Optinvent’s AR glasses are cheaper than Google’s and have a bigger display (hands-on) appeared first on AIVAnet.

Production of the Nintendo Wii console will "soon end," according to a post on Nintendo of Japan's website.

A notice posted to the official website states "manufacturing is scheduled to end soon" on the console, which launched worldwide in 2006.

A reconfigured, updated model of the Wii launched in 2011 with an additional black color scheme, while the scaled-down minimalistic Wii Mini hit select retailers in Canada late last year and Europe and U.K. this past spring. The console's successor, the Wii U, launched in November last year.

According to data tracking website Game Data Museum, the Wii has sold 12.7 million units in Japan since the console's launch, as well as more than 100 million units worldwide.

Polygon has reached out to...

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In de eerste drie kwartalen van 2013 zijn bijna 30 procent minder auto's verkocht dan in dezelfde periode vorig jaar.

Tot nu toe werden er 301.331 auto's verkocht in 2013. Dat is nog minder dan in dezelfde periode in 2009, wat het slechtste jaar voor de autohandel in 40 jaar was. Dat blijkt uit cijfers van de brancheorganisaties RAI Vereniging en Bovag.

Lichte toename

De Bovag verwacht dat de autoverkopen voor 2014 weer licht zullen toenemen. Woordvoerder Paul de Waal: "Het blijft natuurlijk een prognose, maar het is gebaseerd op onze kennis en gegevens uit de markt. Het vertrouwen in de huizenmarkt neemt toe en vandaag was het nieuws dat het met de industrie beter gaat."

Ook zijn de auto's die na de eerste crisis in 2010 en 2011 gekocht zijn aan vervanging toe. "We verwachten dat mensen niet met die aankoop wachten."

Nog snel auto kopen

Ook voor de laatste maanden van dit jaar verwacht de Bovag nog een toename in de verkopen. "Er zijn veel nieuwe belastingregels per 1 januari 2014 en we verwachten dat mensen voor die tijd nog snel een auto willen kopen."

De Volkswagen Up! is de best verkochte auto van 2013 tot nu toe. Volkswagen had in de eerste drie kwartalen een marktaandeel van 12,3 procent.

Mobile Insights is a daily newsletter from BI Intelligence that collects and delivers the top mobile industry news. It is delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence subscribers. 

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Windows Phone Posts Biggest Growth In Europe Among All Platforms (Kantar)
In the three months to August, Windows Phone increased its share of the top five European markets (U.K., Germany, France, Spain, and Italy) to 9.2%. That's up from just 5.1% over the same period a year ago. While its closer competitor BlackBerry posted a market share decline, Windows Phone also bested growth from Android and iOS. In Germany, Windows Phone has closed the market share gap with iOS and is now within just one percentage point. Much of this can be attributed to Nokia, which has attack the low-end and mid-tier markets in these countries with low-cost Windows Phone devices. Read >

BlackBerry Informs Gartner That They Are Wrong (All Things Digital)
Research outfit Gartner recently warned clients that those who rely on BlackBerry's handsets and data management software should have an alternative device should te Canadian handset maker ultimately fail. BlackBerry itself refuted the statement saying Gartner's claims are purely speculative and that enterprise clients need not worry. Read >

Facebook Steps Up To Twitter With TV Data (Wall Street Journal)
Many feel Twitter will become the most prominent second-screen social network for TV watchers. But Facebook is looking to stake their claim in the race. The social network claims it will now send weekly reports to the four American broadcasting networks that will give some insight into how Facebook users are discussing their programs. Read > 

Lenovo Looks To Capitalize On PC And Mobile Growth By Targeting Data center Market (Forbes)
Lenovo, the Chinese electronics manufacturer, has enjoyed recent success in both the PC and mobile markets. Now, it is looking to capitalize on this growth and challenge the major players in the data center server market. Currently, Dell, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard combine for 70% of the market. Forbes details a full SWOT analysis for Lenovo's chances in the market. Read > 

China Threatening To Shut Down Several Mobile News Apps (Reuters)
The Chinese government is looking to increase their regulation on several mobile news apps that have been providing news coverage to mobile users without regulatory approval. It's another effort by the government to mitigate potential online rumors from spreading. China is the next mobile frontier, but before mobile apps and other technologies take off, the government must be forthcoming with its  mobile policies. Read >

Some Thoughts On Startup Crowdfunding (Chris Dixon)
Chris Dixon, an investor at prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, discusses the potential pros and cons to increased crowdfunding for startups, now that it is officially legal in the United States. Many startups are centered on mobile apps or technologies. Read >

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Windows Phone is finally making sales headway with the news that the platform grabbed nearly one in ten smartphone sales across Europe’s five largest markets over the summer.